


Sleep To Dream

by socknonny



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Billy Hargrove Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Nightmares, Sleeping Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:46:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21927667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/socknonny/pseuds/socknonny
Summary: Billy wakes, as he often does, drenched in sweat with a scream lodged in his throat.He tries to call Max on the walkie, so she can let him out of his locked bedroom, but someone else comes to the rescue, instead.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 11
Kudos: 209
Collections: Harringrove Holiday Exchange 2019





	Sleep To Dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Happy holidays agentvenom! I tried to give you some angst with a happy ending, and some hurt/comfort warm vibes as well. I hope you enjoy this holiday gift <3 Thank you so much to g for beta-reading this!!!

Billy wakes, as he often does, drenched in sweat with a scream lodged in his throat. The walls of his tiny bedroom close in around him, made even smaller by the memory of hours sitting on this very bed while a monster occupied his body. Trapped within a prison of his own flesh. 

He stares at the peeling paint on the ceiling, eyes fixed to the tiny patch in the corner that looks like a face, if you squint. His heart beat doesn’t slow, it quickens, and he lies there while his pulse races faster and faster, and it’s all he can do not to scream for real.

But he knows what happens if he does, and so he swallows it down, and refuses to look at the door—where Neil snibbed the lock at nine pm, like every night since last November—or the window, covered in nails. He could smash it, but he’d be out on the street, then. For good.

He doesn’t have the money to live on his own. He’s still too weak to work; if he tried to rescue someone from the pool, he’d probably drown, himself. Besides, summer is long gone. The window is frosted over, drifts of snow sliding past in the silent night beyond it. Still, Billy would take being outside than in here. It’s so fucking small, and the longer he lies here, the closer he feels to imploding.

Then he remembers the walkie Max gave him. He fumbles blindly in the gap between his mattress and the wall and then creeps his hand under the bed frame, searching for the missing slat his dad never found. Billy’s fingers land on smooth plastic, and he pulls the walkie free. Hopes it isn’t too loud.

“Max,” he whispers. Static greets him, harsh in the silence but not loud enough for anyone outside his room to hear. 

There’s no response. He shuffles up the bed, covers falling to pool around his hips, still slick with fear-sweat. Presses his ear against the wall and whispers into the walkie again.

He thinks he hears a faint echo of his words in the room next door, but he isn’t certain. Billy raises his hand to tap on the wall but freezes, wincing as he imagines the thin drywall carrying the sound far further than he wants it to. Imagines his father walking in and finding yet another way to cut Billy off from the world.

He lowers his hand. Just as he’s resigned himself to sinking into the fever-sweat of his dreams, the pounding of his thunderous heart an unwelcome companion he’ll simply have to live with, a voice hisses into the silence.

“Billy?”

It isn’t Max. Billy freezes, staring down at the gray walkie that has brought Steve Harrington’s voice into his bedroom. He wonders, distantly, how the hell he managed to fuck even this up. He only meant to use the frequency between him and Max, but he must have switched to the other one, the one they all use. Max always told him to use it, but he never wanted to. Never wanted to deal with their silent judgement.  _ Fuck _ .

“Forget it, Harrington,” he whispers quietly into the walkie and moves to shove it back in its hiding spot.

“Switch to eighty seven point three.” The walkie goes silent.

Billy stares at it for a long, long time. Why does Steve want him to switch to another frequency? The answer hits Billy in the gut; Steve thinks Max is in trouble. A sinking feeling that feels awfully like disappointment settles in his stomach, and he ignores it. If it existed, it would mean he also had hope, and that thought is as pathetic as it is wrong.

He shoves the dial with his thumb, teeth gritted, and brings the walkie close to his lips. “Max is fine, Harrington. Go back to sleep.”

The walkie crackles for less than a second before Steve says, “I’m not asking about Max, shithead.”

Billy’s heart thuds. Anger rises, familiar and comforting, but before he can snap back, Steve continues.

“She said he locks you up at night.”

The shrinking walls around him freeze, whirl, and true fear skitters along Billy’s spine. Steve knows. He knows. Billy is weak, and Steve knows, and— “Let me out.” He doesn’t mean to say the words, doesn’t know how Steve can even help him all the way on the other side of Hawkins, but then Steve is saying “Affirmative” like some kind of fucking dweeb, and the line goes silent, and Billy is alone again.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there like that, staring at the distorted colours of panic that bleed into his vision. The vague thought occurs to him that he should warn Steve the window is locked too before he rattles it and gives the entire thing away, but he can’t move. Visions of his nightmares—a shadow overwhelming him, controlling him, while he murders his way through everyone he knows—eclipse everything else. Nothing else matters.

A small sound breaks through his thoughts, so small it shouldn’t be noticeable but so  _ familiar  _ it sends Billy’s pulse racing with fear, with dread. His door has been unlocked, his dad is coming in.

But the head that appears around the corner isn’t Neil’s. Billy gapes at Steve for long seconds, taking in the way Steve’s eyes dart back and forth, searching for danger. Notes the hard press of Steve’s finger to his lips as he jerks his head back towards the hallway.

Billy doesn’t even bother getting dressed. He grabs his clothing from the floor and follows Steve down the corridor, watches him silently pull the front door open, watches him slip the spare key back on top of the architrave. He’s so intent on watching Steve that he misses the creaky floorboard at the entrance, plants his entire foot in the centre of it so that an obnoxious whine of wood against wood echoes through the house.

But it doesn’t matter, because they’re already out the door, racing down the drive, tumbling into Steve’s car and driving off into the night.

Billy begins laughing. He laughs and laughs, head tipped back, tears leaking out of the corner of his eyes, and even though he’s locked in a speeding vehicle roughly four feet by six feet, far smaller than his bedroom, it’s the first time in hours he feels  _ free _ .

“Fuck,” he breathes, slamming his hand down on the dash, making Steve jump.

Steve glances at him sideways, the thin slices of light from the streetlamps gliding over his face. He doesn’t look sleepy, like Billy woke him up. His eyes are bright, jaw tight with tension, and Billy wonders if maybe he isn’t the only one with nightmares.

Then, Steve’s gaze slides away, a pink flush rising along his neck, and Billy realizes he’s sitting in Steve’s front seat wearing just his briefs. Despite the panic still coursing beneath his skin—the steady weight of fear that always pulses, sluggish, in his veins, waiting for something to ignite it—he grins. Runs his teeth along his bottom lip. Feels, for just a moment, like his old self again.

To his surprise, Steve’s face doesn’t wall over, like it used to. Instead, he laughs, the sound low and startled. “Never thought I’d say this, but it’s good to see you back, Hargrove.”

Billy doesn’t know what to say to that. He slides on his jeans, heart still racing but for a different reason this time, and tugs on his shirt and sweater. At the last second, he realizes it’s the dorky Christmas sweater he was wearing yesterday.

Max bought it for him, and he’s loath to do anything that upsets her these days.

Besides, he kind of likes it.

Defiantly, he adjusts the collar so his curls sit perfectly above it, and stares ahead. He catches Steve staring at him several times, but neither of them speak. The road drifts by outside the window, gently falling snow catching Billy’s attention. Slowly, the memory of the nightmare fades, and he wonders how long it’s been since he left the house. Neil doesn’t lock him in during the day; he doesn’t need to. Where would Billy go? Everywhere he looks brings memories of what the monster made him do. His Camaro carries the ghosts of hundreds of people locked in his trunk.

Neil doesn’t need to lock him up at night, either, and it’s only because he does that Billy feels the overwhelming urge to leave.

Sliding a glance towards Steve, he takes a moment to absorb the reality that he’s sitting here, in Steve’s car, the tiny walls of his bedroom far, far behind him. Something light stirs inside his chest, something like hope, but it’s impossible. So he squashes it down.

“Where are we going, pretty boy?” he asks, trying to recapture the same spirit from before, where he’d sounded like his old self and Steve had smiled at him for it.

But Steve doesn’t smile this time. His brow furrows, and he slows the car down, pulling into a familiar road that Billy knows from too many parties—a lifetime ago—leads to the quarry. “You don’t have to do that, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Fake it.” Steve takes a breath, and for the first time Billy really looks at him.

The tension in his face doesn’t fade, but Billy realizes now it isn’t directed at him. It’s a familiar weariness, one Billy knows intimately. The kind of tension bred from never sleeping—or always sleeping and never resting. An idea creeps into Billy’s mind. It’s strange and new, but he takes a chance and stops looking inward for just long enough to look at someone else without the filter of his own emotion.

“What did you dream of?” Billy asks quietly, putting aside the edge of his own panic. It’s distant enough now that he almost doesn’t notice it.

Steve lifts his eyebrows and grimaces, that expression that says  _ you’ve hit the nail on the head _ , even though Billy hasn’t said anything at all and half their communication right now is wordless. Layers upon layers of confession that still haven’t seen the light of day.

“The same thing I always do,” Steve says, slowing the car down over the gentle crunch of gravel. He puts it in park and cuts the ignition. “Monsters. Death.”

Billy exhales in a rush. “Thought you were meant to lead up to that slowly. A few more confessions; I’ll braid your hair, you spin the bottle.”

Steve grins, wry and real. “Don’t you think we’re past all that, Hargrove?”

Billy thinks of summer, of the warmth on his skin turned rancid and vile. Of the sense of comfort so distant he couldn’t even recall it. Of the knowledge he doesn’t deserve it anyway.

He thinks of Steve, never far from the monsters. Still here. Still with Billy, despite everything he’s done, simply because Billy called. Like maybe… maybe he thinks Billy doesn’t deserve to be alone.

“Yeah,” he mutters. “Probably.”

Steve turns to him, light from the moon reflecting in his eyes. “I could braid your hair anyway.”

Billy laughs, a real laugh, like he hasn’t done in months. “Or we could skip straight to spin the bottle.”

“I don’t have a bottle.” Steve’s grinning wider now, almost wicked.

Billy shrugs, lips slowly curving into a mirror of Steve’s expression. “I’d rig it anyway.”

Steve feels closer now, even though he hasn’t moved. Billy can count the inches between their skin. It’s less than a foot, and the warmth of Steve’s body carries across the air, gentle and soothing. Comforting, like Billy remembers before everything changed.

“You can’t rig spin the bottle.”

“I’m very good with my hands.”

He’s closer still. His index finger traces a line across Billy’s upturned palm. He doesn’t draw away when Billy closes it into a fist, ensnares Steve’s fingers inside.

“I bet you are,” Steve says, starlight shimmering across his face. “But I always thought you’d be better with your mouth, if I’m honest.”

Steve’s breath ghosts across Billy’s skin, and there’s a sense that he’s waiting, still unsure if this is just midnight insanity, the kind of looseness that comes from being drunk on lingering nightmare-fear and the impossibility of things that might happen beneath the moonlight.

“Who says I’m not?” Billy’s eyes fall to Steve’s mouth, and he can feel the hitch of Steve’s breath on his skin. He lifts a single finger to Steve’s collar and tugs him the final two inches forward until their lips meet. Gentle. Coaxing. He pulls back just enough to speak. “What’s the verdict, pretty boy?”

“Need more time,” Steve murmurs and leans in again.

Billy loses time, sinks into the breathy press of Steve against him, the hint of a moan as Billy slides deeper, slower. The gear shift’s in the way, but that doesn’t stop him from climbing until he’s straddling Steve, thighs braced on either side of him. 

“Don’t think I’ve ever kissed someone wearing a fucking Christmas sweater before,” he mutters, breath ragged as he slides a hand beneath Steve’s shirt, feels the warmth of his skin beneath it.

“There’s a first for everything.” Steve’s just as breathy, just as gone.

“How were you so quick to get me out tonight, anyway?” Billy asks.

Steve pauses, leaning back just enough to meet Billy’s gaze. “Max warned me,” he admits. “She thought this would happen eventually, and the kid sleeps like the dead.” He shrugs. “She knows her flaws. Got a backup plan.”

Billy feels like he should be offended, but he doesn’t care. Instead, a swell of something warm settles deep within him. It feels like hope; he  _ lets it  _ be hope.

“Thanks for being my backup, Steve,” Billy murmurs, Steve’s breath hot against his lips as he exhales in a rush.

“Thanks for—” Steve breaks off, embarrassed. “I don’t know. For this not being all in my head.” He takes a deep breath. “For helping me sleep properly for once.”

They haven’t slept yet, but Billy knows what he means. Already, the lazy curl of exhaustion shifts within him, bone-deep, and he knows that for once, he’ll be able to give into it. No matter where Steve takes him, if they’re sleeping together, Billy knows that at last he’ll be able to  _ rest _ .

Billy chuckles, the sound a low rumble in his throat, delighted with everything that’s happened and the heady anticipation of what’s still to come. Both the sleep and… everything else. 

“You ain’t seen nothing, yet.” He descends again, mouths against Steve’s neck, and whispers, “I’ll show you exactly what I can do with my hands _and_ my mouth.”


End file.
